Mark Buchanan refers to humourist C. Northcote Parkinson's ideas about committees (10 January, p 38). Parkinson's suggestions have more far-reaching applications than just committee size.rnWhen working on a project to reduce the crew workload in a large anti-submarine aircraft, I was continually being pressured to increase the crew size.rnIn fact, such an increase would have added to the problem.rnThis is because there is a "communications overhead" created by people interacting with each other. Say there were 1 unit of communication overhead for two people. With three people, the overhead for all three communicating together increases to 3 units - one for each two-way conversation available. By the time eight crew members are communicating, the overload has risen exponentially torn28 units, sharply reducing the amount of time left to complete the primary task.
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